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By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Posted Monday, June 19th, 2006 - Comments Off on What would Francis Coppola do?: Ava Lowery on CNN
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What would Francis Coppola do?: Ava Lowery on CNN

On CNN’s “BlogBuzz,” the newsreader adopts a patronizing tone toward 15-year-old Alabaman Ava Lowery, whose short, WWJD?, ties quotations about faith and the singing of “Jesus Loves Me” to images of bloodied and broken Iraqi children. “So why do you think you’re getting death threats?” Lowery replies, “Um, I’m giving people the benefit of the doubt, hoping that they don’t know I’m a 15 year old, but regardless—” “Well, why should your age matter, Ava,” the grown-up interjects sternly, “if you feel that you’ve studied the issue?” “I do think it’s pretty sad that people are sending me these threats. I think that some people are just outraged that I’m out there telling the truth…” blogger32307_34.jpg“You know, when you talk about the truth, and I’ve watched both of the clips that we have, but I want to play some of one in particular, the WWJD? clip…” A small part of Lowery’s short plays, and when it’s over, the theory-of-montage-unaware newsreader shakes her head with what seems genuine anger. “Ava, taking a Christian hymn and putting it to pictures of suffering Iraqi children, what is it that you’re hoping to accomplish? Because, the, the, the, the disparity between the two, almost comes across as flip…” Is the child anti-troops? “But you say you’re not anti-troops? You’re anti-war, but you’re not, you support the troops…” After Lowery says that members of her family are in the military, the grown-up persists, “Have you gotten any reaction from troops who are overseas or family members who have people who are overseas?” She also tries to associate Lowery with adults whom she does not name (DailyKos): “You know, because these bloggers played your clips, y’know, on the jumbo screen at their big annual convention, uh, I mean, in some ways, do you feel that, that you are being used by them?” Lowery drawls, “In a way, I’m also using them, so I guess it’s a fair trade.” (At least she wasn’t asked if she was a friend of George Soros.) flip4587.jpgTo me the great hope is that now these little video recorders are around and people who normally wouldn’t make movies are going to be making them. And suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father’s camcorder and for once, the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed, forever, and it will really become an art form. (Francis Ford Coppola, 1991) [The QuickTime of the interview is here; more on Lowery here; This is her site, Peace Takes Courage, and her extended run of animations is here.]

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon